Evolution consists of many great revolutionary events taking place quite…

Evolution consists of many great revolutionary events taking place quite independently of man’s consciously attempting to bring them about. Man is very vain; he likes to feel that he is responsible for all the favorable things that happen, and he is innocent of all the unfavorable happenings. But all the larger evolutionary patternings seeming favorable or unfavorable to man’s conditioned reflexing are transpiring transcendentally to any of man’s conscious planning or contriving.

Sourced, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)

Other Buckminster Fuller Quotes

The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much territory too thinly to be persuasive, let alone convincing. In science, however, a generalization means a principle that has been found to hold true in every special case…. The principle of leverage is a scientific generalization. - View Quote Details on The word generalization in literature usually means covering too much…
Up to the twentieth century, “reality” was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the chart of the electromagnetic spectrum… humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one-millionth of reality. Ninety-nine percent of all that is going to affect our tomorrows is being developed by humans using instruments and working in ranges of reality that are nonhumanly sensible. - View Quote Details on Up to the twentieth century, “reality” was everything humans could…
A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by virtue of which you have received the information that it exists. Each of the chemical elements is a pattern integrity. Each individual is a pattern integrity. The pattern integrity of the human individual is evolutionary and not static. - View Quote Details on A pattern has an integrity independent of the medium by…
The Universe consists of non-simultaneously apprehended events. - View Quote Details on The Universe consists of non-simultaneously apprehended events.
I never try to tell anybody else what to do, number one. And number two, I think that’s what the individual is all about. Each one of us has something to contribute. This really depends on each one doing their own thinking, but not following any kind of rule that I can give out, any command. We’re all on the frontier, we’re all in a great mystery — incredibly mysterious. Each one possesses exactly what each one is working out, and what each one works out relates to their particular set of circumstances of any one day, or any one place around the world. - View Quote Details on I never try to tell anybody else what to do,…
You either make sense or you make money. - View Quote Details on You either make sense or you make money.
All of humanity now has the option to “make it” successfully and sustainably, by virtue of our having minds, discovering principles and being able to employ these principles to do more with less. - View Quote Details on All of humanity now has the option to “make it”…
I have been a deliberate half-century-fused inciter of a cool-headed, natural, gestation-rate-paced revolution, armed with physically demonstrable livingry levers with which altogether to elevate all humanity to realization of an inherently sustainable, satisfactory-to-all, ever higher standard of living. Critical threshold-crossing of the inevitable revolution is already underway. - View Quote Details on I have been a deliberate half-century-fused inciter of a cool-headed,…
Humanity has the option to become successful on our planet if we reorient world production away from weaponry– from killingry to livingry. Can we convince humanity in time? - View Quote Details on Humanity has the option to become successful on our planet…
The new human networks’ emergence represents the natural evolutionary expansion into the just completed, thirty-years-in-its-buildings world-embracing, physical communications network. The new reorienting of human networking constitutes the heart-and-mind-pumped flow of life and intellect into the world arteries. - View Quote Details on The new human networks’ emergence represents the natural evolutionary expansion…